It was some time after five o'clock on a Sunday afternoon, and Harry was sitting on his bed, trying to enjoy his hot chocolate and book.
Harry was trying not to think about the day before. It had been a weird evening.
Kissing Anna? What had he been thinking?
The thing was, he considered, I was thinking both very hard and not at all.
Oh dear.
Harry took a sip of his hot chocolate, and tried to focus his mind back onto his book. It was an adventure story about a small boy learning Quidditch and saving small trolls from evil queens. It was the sort of book he would have greatly enjoyed when he was eleven. Even though he had never read it, it was making him feel quite nostalgic.
It was just the perfect book for a dreary Sunday afternoon, on the return from mistakes and things he'd rather not think about.
Another sip of hot chocolate.
Another page turn.
A great crash at his front door.
Magical sirens were unleashed. The book was thrown down, and Harry's wand was in his hand, and he was on his feet, heart thumping out of his chest.
He was just about to open his bedroom door when it was slammed open. Magic filled the room.
Harry was casting shields and spells faster than he could think. Dark people in cloaks, dark things with long cold fingers waving wands and casting spells; he was fighting for his life. Jab, jab, strike, push, jab. Step by step, he fought them out of his doorway, pushing them back down the stairs.
The narrow stairwell was on his side. The hundreds of defensive spells which the Blacks had set in place and which he had only begun to remove were on his side. Acid spat out from holes in the walls, stairs broke and pulled the death eater down below – a long fall into the basement. Harry pushed and pushed and pushed his way down the stairs.
But he was tired. He was unprepared. There were so many of them.
And the house was done with fighting.
With a great sigh, it gave up its Master.
And Harry, with a spare spell, was knocked out from a single curse.
He fell, landing with a thump on his front carpet.
Long fingers seized him.
They apparated away.
And one – one remained.
His wand slowly carved a thin, golden scar into the carpet.
And he smiled.
Voldemort left, his power leaving with him.
/
Harry Potter's front door was partly open.
Hermione pushed it open slowly; it creaked and hung open angrily.
Magic hung in the air. Hermione crept outside, feeling Anna just behind her.
"Lumos." The light of her wand lit up the hall.
"Merlin," she whispered. Paper's were strewn across the floor. "Harry? Harry! Where are you?" She darted into the kitchen, and slammed into the living room. Pots and pans were strewn across the kitchen floor, glass shards covered cutlery on the benches. Broken plates crunched beneath her feet. Curtains and cushions in the living room were broken, feathers peeking out like dead things.
Hermione turned with a whirl back into the foyer, and sprinted up the stairs. She slammed into bedrooms, slapping doors open and shut. Harry's bedroom was a mess; paper was strewn up and down the stairs. There was a hole in the bathroom wall, and the mirror was shattered.
And on the floor - broken photo frames. Hermione knelt down and picked one up. It was Harry, and Gin - and Ginevra Weasley. And they were hugging. And the frame was shattered.
Hermione scowled, threw the frame back on the floor, and rocketed her way back down the stairs.
Harry was gone.
In the foyer, Anna was standing very still, staring down at her feet. "He's gone!" Hermione cried. "The absolute idiot - the Ministry has gone and arrested him, haven't they!"
Anna pointed a pale finger towards her feet.
There in the carpet, in a thin golden line, was the shape of a lightning bolt. A scrambled, hurried lightning bolt.
Hermione shook her head fiercely. Her mind was enormously clear, for the first time in months.
"Dammit," she whispered. "That sick - he deserved it though, hey Anna? After all that? Maybe prison is the best place for him right now. Especially after that fight that he must have put up."
"He didn't deserve this," said Anna softly.
"What?"
"He didn't deserve anything."
"Pardon? I thought he - after what he did to you!"
Anna shrugged softly, then looked upstairs. "What's up there?"
"Just bedrooms, bathrooms - a mess."
Anna was up the stairs before Hermione could blink.
Before she could follow her, the door was slammed open.
There was Ron Weasley, his red hair silhouetted in the setting sun.
"Hermione!" he said, surprised.
Hermione slowly lowered her wand from where it had automatically been pointing towards Ron's throat. "Ron!"
"What on earth are you doing here?"
"I could ask the same of you!"
"It's my best mate's house, 'Mione, I'm allowed to be here!" He stepped inside, took in the torn carpet and broken paintings, and swore. "What in Merlin's name - Granger, if you turned him in -"
"I did nothing of the sort," snapped Hermione. "If you must know, I'm here because Anna wanted to see Harry. But then -"
"That snake wanted to see Harry," Ron hissed through his teeth. He took a step towards her. "I suppose you fabricated another story and called the Ministry on him."
He was in her face now, towering over Hermione. "Ron..."
"Where is Harry?"
"I don't know! It was like this when we arrived!"
"I don't believe that trash for a second."
"Ron!"
"He's not here, is he?"
"No, but -"
"Then where is he?"
"Ron!" screeched Hermione, pushing Ron away from her with both hands on his chest and stumbling back, the door behind her now. "Stop it!"
"You stop it!"
"No, you stop it!"
"You're being an idiot!"
"You were the idiot!"
"I was the idiot?" Ron snorted so loudly that his nose could possibly have fallen off. "Who was the one who believed her office assistant's word over the word of her boyfriend, whom she'd known for years? Who was the one who believed her new employee even though she had been a known liar?"
"I ..."
"She drugged you, Hermione." Ron was standing very close again. "Look at me! It's obvious. Did you ever feel dizzy? Did you ever feel out of it? Do you want to know why?"
"Rubbish," said Hermione. "Get off it Ron!"
"I know what she did to you!" said Ron.
Doubts poked at the edge of Hermione's mind - but she dutifully ignored them, and instead screeched back at Ron.
It was a Sunday evening in the middle of London. A couple was yelling at each other, both right, and both wrong.
There is nothing new under the sun.
/
Harry Potter's bedroom was a complete mess.
Anna had found it easily. It was the room with the scratched door, varnish hanging in strips.
It also had a "Harry's Room" sign, written on an obvious tear out from a Chudley Cannon's magazine.
The blankets were on the floor, and glass from broken photo frames crunched under her feet.
She stepped towards the window - and her foot caught on the blankets. She caught herself with a gasp, and glanced down.
There, underneath the blankets, there was a glimpse of silver.
She squatted down gingerly, and pulled it out.
It was a beautiful, shimmery piece of material. She fingered it - and gasped.
Her hand had disappeared.
She shook it out from the material, and wrung it out.
She could see now - it was a beautiful cloak.
Memories hissed at her.
She folded it up carefully, and tucked it into her robes' pocket.
She turned, and headed for the door -
before her foot crunched on a photo frame.
She peered down at it - and immediately her head started to spin.
She was holding the photo in her hands.
She was squeezing it with all her might.
The broken glass was cutting into her hands.
Blood seeped onto the photo, matching the girls' hair.
The blood and the girl were one.
The boy was hugging the girl.
And she knew who the girl was -
(it had to be) -
The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.
And everything stopped, even time, in that very moment. And the darkness fled, and the light grew so strong that Anna could no longer bear it.
But then
There was a call.
Anna's tattoo glowed. She could feel it glowing and calling her underneath her long sleeved dress.
She was being summoned, back to the Manor.
She had to leave.
And the picture was slipped out of the broken frame, and tucked in with the cloak, and then Anna was sprinting down the stairs so fast that she could barely breath.
The secrets she carried in her pockets smiled smugly to themselves -
because that's what secrets do.
/
"I have to leave."
Hermione and Ron turned. Their faces were red from the yelling, and Hermione felt like she was about to cry.
Anna was standing on the bottom step of the stairs, her face as pale as pale could be.
"Where to? I thought we had to find Harry?" demanded Hermione, anger surging up through her veins. (Anger at Anna. Anger at Ron. But mostly anger at herself.)
"Running away while you still can!" snarled Ron.
"Harry's at the Malfoy Manor," said Anna. "Neville's is the safe place." Then she turned, and was gone with a crack.
Hermione and Ron could not physically move in shock.
"She's gone?"
"How did she know that?"
They were both looking at each other at the same time, eyes locked.
"I don't trust her," said Ron.
"She's changed," said Hermione.
"She's lied!"
"We don't have another choice!"
"What if he's not there?"
"Then we come back here!"
"We just don't know for sure!"
"You have no reason to trust me." The room stilled, and Hermione bit her lip as she added, "But I do trust her."
"You're an idiot, Hermione Granger," said Ron.
"I'm sorry."
"And I'm an idiot for trusting you." Ron sighed, and his wand was in his hand, and he looked ready to punch someone.
Hermione pulled her wand out of her pocket, and the corners of her mouth curled in a sad smile. "Just like old times?"
"Just like old times."
Ron held out his hand.
Hermione took it.
They apparated with a crack.
/
While writing this chapter I got really frustrated that it's hard to write people talking on top of each other. Which happens all the time in real life – I'm just not sure how to write it. Thoughts?